Mavs make the move to Portsmouth

Thursday

Dec 6, 2012 at 3:15 AM

By MIKE ZHEPortsmouth Herald

PORTSMOUTH — The Seacoast Mavericks are coming home.

The Mavericks, a third-year team in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League, will formally announce on Monday that they have reached an agreement with the City of Portsmouth to play their home games in 2013 at Leary Field downtown.

The team spent its first two summers playing at Spaulding High School in Rochester, where it ranked last and then second-to-last in the FCBL in attendance.

“We’re thankful for our two years in Rochester at Spaulding High School, but the City of Portsmouth adds another layer of tourism and a rich baseball history that we’re excited to be a part of,” said Mavericks president Mike Daboul on Wednesday.

The Mavericks are made up of college players with an emphasis on the region. By league rules, half of a team’s 30-player roster must be from New England or play at a New England college. Games are played with wooden bats, like in the Cape Cod Baseball League and New England Collegiate Baseball League.

The team is owned and operated by Dave Hoyt, who also owns and runs USA Training Centers in Newington, which offers instruction and sponsors several AAU teams.

The Mavericks originally targeted Leary Field as a potential home in the months leading up to their inaugural season in 2011, but couldn’t get the available dates. In 2013, their 54-game schedule will be backloaded with home games to work around existing Babe Ruth and American Legion schedules.

“We squeezed out some time for them,” said Portsmouth recreation director Rus Wilson. “They didn’t need as much as they did in the past. … Most of their games will be after Babe Ruth and Legion are done.”

Daboul said he has worked with Portsmouth Babe Ruth officials Mike Young and Peter Goodwin in crafting the schedule.

“The last thing we want to do is displace any baseball player” he said. “That’s what our organization is all about. We completely believe in youth baseball programs.”

The Mavericks ranked eighth of nine FCBL teams in attendance last year, averaging just 251 fans a game. By comparison, the Brockton Rox, North Shore Navigators, Nashua Silver Knights and Pittsfield Suns all topped 1,000 per game.

The FCBL is made up of five Massachusetts teams, two New Hampshire teams, and one each in Maine and Connecticut. The rest of the teams are the Torrington Titans, the Wachusett Dirt Dawgs, the Martha’s Vineyard Sharks and the Old Orchard Beach Raging Tide.

Some of the Mavericks’ best crowds of the summer came during the six home games they moved to Leary Field as an experiment, said Daboul.

“That’s a huge factor,” he said. “When we did our pilot dates at Leary Field last season we had about 500 people a night. It’s just a great feeling at the ballpark when you have that crowd there.”

Wilson said initial concerns about parking and traffic at what is, essentially, a neighborhood ballpark were allayed during those games.

“Last year we were worried about traffic,” he said. “There were no real issues at all.”

With tickets priced last year at $5 (adults) and $3 (youths and seniors), the Mavericks — a non-profit organization — offer an inexpensive night out, even if the on-field success hasn’t been there. They finished last out of four teams in 2011, then second-to-last this past summer in an expanded, nine-team league, going 20-33.

Portsmouth has made a number of attempts to land a collegiate summer-league franchise going back a decade. A group made up of several local baseball figures tried unsuccessfully to land a franchise in the NECBL through both expansion and relocation.

Daboul thanked Wilson, city manager John Bohenko, Mayor Eric Spear, the City Council and the Recreation Dept. for helping make this move get done.

“If they didn’t want to give us a chance,” said Daboul, “it wouldn’t happen.”

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